Appleseed
by ifthenbecause
Summary: Life is full of mysteries, even when you wish it wasn't. I don't know how I came to this world or why, but one thing's for sure: This world is full of secrets, and I'm going to dig my grubby little hands into every single one of them. No matter what I've gotta do to find them in the first place. An SI!OC story.
1. Hamelin Apple

Chapter One

Hamelin Apple

 _Ghost Apple: 10 Million Beli_

Ghost Apple. _Really?_ Of all the names they could have given me, why that one? Ugh, I would be stuck with it for the rest of my life.

Well, I suppose maybe they had a point. I was small, pale, and easily bruised just like the fruit they'd named me for.

Perhaps I should back up a little. My name is Hamelin Apple, but it wasn't always. I wasn't born to this world, I just kind of...ended up here. Fate may have had a hand in it, the fickle bastard. It threw me into a new body, a new world, a new life.

A new family.

When I came here years ago, the pain was so excruciating I couldn't see through the tears. The only thing to break through the agony was a warm, gravelly voice.

"Kiddo, are you okay?" A large hand cupped the back of my head. I tried to talk, but all the sound I could make was a tiny, pained whine. "Aw, kid. What the hell happened? Who leaves a little kid out here like this?"

Strong arms lifted me up, then everything went dark.

o

I woke up in a dark room, tucked into an over-sized bed. Voices murmured from beyond the door. As I weighed the pros and cons of getting out of the bed versus going back to sleep, the door swung open slightly and the voices grew clearer.

"Shit, what the hell?" said one voice, in a harsh whisper. "That's just a little kid."

"See why I couldn't just leave 'em out there?" said the voice I'd heard just before falling unconscious earlier.

A little strangled, the first voice said, "The kid's probably even younger than Bethel."

"And smaller than Cath was at that age," my savior said, pointed like a barb.

There was a heavy sigh. "Alright, Marron, you've made your point."

"I don't know why you keep getting angry at me for bringing home strays, when all you do in the end is tell me I was right."

"I told you when we got married, you're always right but that doesn't mean I won't complain about it." Another sigh, chased by a quiet laugh. "Alright. If- _if_ -the kid wants to stay, I'm fine with it. But you get to explain it to Bethel."

"Knew you'd come around," was the last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me up again.

o

When I woke up, daylight streamed through the window and the sound of pancakes on a griddle and the chatter of multiple voices came through the open door. Someone had set a pair of shorts and a T-shirt on the bedside table.

I nudged the door closed long enough to get changed-god, these clothes were huge on me. I stretched out my arms in front of the mirror and the sleeves gaped open, showing my ribs. And now that I wasn't delirious with pain I noticed something else. I'm pretty sure last I knew I was a normal, if small, nineteen-year-old human. My skin was still pale and my short hair still brown, but apparently I lost a decade somewhere and...

I had three eyes.

Aw, hell.

Something weird was going on, but I was starving and exhausted and not interested in dealing with it. Squaring my shoulders and girding my loins, or whatever, I stepped out into the kitchen.

Three pairs of eyes locked on me immediately, the chatter around the kitchen table halting as the three kids, ranging in age from eleven to eighteen, turned their attention to me. The youngest was green, but I'd already decided not to try and make sense of anything right now.

"Kids, come on," said a low, raspy voice, one I'd heard somewhere before. There, at the griddle with a spatula and a frilly apron was a dark-skinned man, his eyes bright blue and hair shining in silver curls around his lightly-lined face. "Don't be rude. Grab a seat, kiddo, it's good to see you up and about."

The kids at the table scrambled to make room for me, the green one patting the chair next to him in invitation.

"I'm Bethel!" he said, face split into a wide smile that showed off a lot of sharp teeth. His eyes were black from lid to lid, and webbing stretched delicately between his fingers as he reached out to shake my hand. "Haha, I guess I'm not the youngest Hamelin anymore!"

"Bethel, let the kid have a meal at least before you start springing that shit," the man said as he placed a plate of pancakes in front of me.

"Sorry, Dad."

The man ruffled Bethel's gold hair on his way back to the griddle. "No harm, no foul. Your mom'll be back soon, we can talk about it then."

I took a hesitant bite of pancake, then fell on the rest like a starving animal. The eldest of the kids-dark red hair, same blue eyes and snub nose as the man-smiled indulgently and passed one of their pancakes over to my plate.

"I'm Mango," they said.

"I'm Gooseberry," shouted the preteen girl next to them. She leaned across the table toward me with a grin, lifting herself up with her hands flat against the wood. The pink polish on her nails was bright against the dove gray of her skin, the midnight black of her box braids. There were scales on her hips, glittering silver, and when I looked further I saw she had a fish's tail instead of legs. Okay. Great. That was happening. "What's your name?"

"I'm-" I stopped. What was my name? I couldn't remember. I could remember so much else, but not my name. The more I thought, the worse it got: My name wasn't the only memory missing. I couldn't remember my family, my home, what I'd been doing before ending up here. How did I get here? It was all blank, static noise, empty spaces where there should've been knowledge.

My face must've showed my sudden panic, because Mango slid out of their seat and onto their knees beside me, arms around my shoulders.

"I can't remember anything, I can't, I can't, I-"

"It's okay, kid, it's going to be fine. You're going to be fine."

With my face tucked into Mango's shoulder, I heard Gooseberry cry, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know!" It shook me from my panic, turning my mind from my pain to hers, and I got a grip on my emotions enough to slow my breathing and my pounding heart.

"It's not your fault," I said, extricating myself from Mango's hold. "It's nobody's fault."

"Nobody's," said a new voice-no, not new, the voice of the person who'd found me, "except whoever left you unconscious in our orchard."

I lifted my head off Mango's shoulder and saw her for the first time. She was so tall, build like a brick shithouse, her bronze-skinned arms musclebound and her stance taut. But, beneath unruly red curls, her brown eyes were soft like fresh-tilled earth.

She knelt down beside me and Mango and took one of my small hands between her very large ones. "My name is Hamelin Marron. That's my husband, Hamelin Church, and these are three of our kids, though I suppose you've already been introduced."

The man-Church-sat down in Mango's vacated chair. "Now that everyone here, we can have that talk. Now, kiddo, don't look so wide-eyed, it's no big deal."

"What he's trying to say," said Marron, "is since it's pretty clear there's no one around taking care of you, would you like to join our family? We'd all be happy to have you, if you're willing."

I was suddenly nine years old instead of nineteen, with three eyes instead of two, in a place I didn't recognize, where merpeople weren't a myth. I couldn't remember who I was or how I got here, except that it apparently involved enough pain to knock me out. It took thirty seconds for all that information to coalesce into an answer:

"I. Um. I-I guess? But, um, I need a name."

Marron took my face between her big, bronze hands and looked into my eyes. She glanced at Church, who gave a huffed laugh and a shrug, and then she looked back at me.

"How about Hamelin Apple?"

* * *

 **this website keeps dicking around with my em-dashes so I guess I'll leave them be for now. Welcome to the story pals~**


	2. Cathedral

**Aaaaand we're back, pals! Chapter 2 is up. A little bit shorter than chapter 1, but it sets some important things in motion. Don't worry, we'll be seeing some canon characters soon.**

 **LoveSeasons: Thanks for the review! As to your question, it'll be discussed later in this chapter, but Apple is (as I am) nonbinary! (So is Mango, which is why Apple refers to Mango with they/them pronouns.)**

Chapter Two

Cathedral

The first year of living as Hamelin Apple passed uneventfully after its rather eventful beginning. We lived on Albatross, an autumn island in a sea called the North Blue, and something about those words itched at me but the static didn't let up. The Hamelin family owned a cider mill and a large apple orchard, doing business with the townsfolk and passing ships.

I got clothes that actually fit, learned to help around the mill, and started learning to fight. Marron said she wouldn't let any of her children grow up unable to hold their own in a brawl, so in a year I went from a thin-wristed weakling to, well, a thin-wristed weakling with good reflexes. When I wasn't training or helping at the mill, I practically lived in the town's small library, reading and rereading every book I could get my hands on.

I learned more about this new world of mine, both through what was written and what was left out. I'd been an anthropology student in my previous life, and knew how to read between the lines. Knowledge was a passion I clung to, an identity I could hold even through the gaps in my memory. The classes I'd once taken remained fresh in my mind while other aspects of that other life were gnawingly blank.

A new mystery presented itself to me, enticing in its distance from my own problems: There were gaps in the history of the world, data not just unknown but erased, information I yearned to dig out from the grave where the World Government had buried it. A century forgotten, a kingdom expunged from record, a yawning abyss of time stretching out undiscovered. I wanted that knowledge. I needed it.

If I could not fill the empty spaces in my own history, I would fill the blanks of the world's past instead.

I found out some things about my new family, too. Bethel and Gooseberry were adopted, like I was. Somewhere out on the sea was Mango's twin sister Cathedral and the third-oldest, first-adopted of the family, Chapel.

Cathedral was some kind of force of nature. She'd left Albatross of her own free will two years before my arrival, but from what I'd gathered the townsfolk would've exiled her if she hadn't gone. Mango called her a troublemaker. The townsfolk called her a menace and remembered her mostly as a sharp smile and a deep well of violence that seemed to worry everyone but her family. She wasn't technically a pirate, but she wasn't on the government's side either. Marron was proud of her, Church muttered and pretended he wasn't proud too.

She and Chapel were a constant presence in the Hamelin home, even though they weren't around. Mango wrote them every week, and crowed and gathered the family around the table when a new letter came in.

But, still, I didn't meet either of them until the end of my first year as a Hamelin, on the day Marron had declared my birthday.

As the sun set, we sat around the kitchen table, a chocolate cake set in front of me laden with candles. Just as I was about to blow them out, the front door slammed open.

"Hellooooo!" a sweet, high voice sang. "I'm here to meet my newest sibling!"

"Cath!" Mango bolted up from their seat hard enough to topple it over and ran to hug the newcomer. She was their opposite in every way-short where they were tall, with Church's silver hair in a long ponytail and Marron's brown eyes full of a cold kind of mirth. Sidling around the twins and into the room was another person.

"Hi, Chapel," Marron greeted him with a hug. He was pale, dark-haired, with icy eyes and long-fingered hands. A smile split his face as he signed hello to her.

Then he turned to me, and his hands moved in signs I could just barely remember: _Hello. My name C-H-A-P-E-L._

Clumsily, I signed my name back, and his smile turned into a grin. He started to sign something else- _brother_ was the only sign I caught-but just then Cathedral extricated herself from Mango's hold and launched herself into my personal space.

"You're Apple, right? Mango said you preferred to be called 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she,'" she said, glancing between me and the bag she'd started rummaging through. "I hope that's right, little sib, I've been so excited to meet you since Mango's letter got to me. They said you like books and history, so I hope you like these! I stole them from an abandoned temple out near the Grand Line."

She spoke so quickly, all I could do was sit and watch, allowing her to shove a stack of books and scrolls into my arms.

"Damn, Cath, let the poor kid have a moment." Church chuckled and pulled her away from me. "She gets it from your mom, Apple Pie, but you don't gotta let her steamroll you like that. Now, I think you were just about to blow out those candles, huh?"

o

Later, as I curled in my bed with one of the books Cath had given me, a light hand knocked on the door.

It opened slightly, and Cath's cold brown eye peered through. "Knock-knock, sweet apple pie. Can I come in?"

"Yeah," I said, pulling myself up into a less awkward position. She sat on the mattress, by my feet, and took one of the scrolls in her hands. It was written in an old language, something I couldn't decipher, so I'd cast it aside. She ran her fingers over the fraying parchment and fading ink, cold eyes warm and soft in the lamplight.

"Do you know why I gave you these scrolls, little sibling?" she asked.

"I...because Mango told you I liked books?" I tucked my feet a little closer to my body.

She smiled. "That was part of it. If you'd had no interest, I wouldn't have bothered. Mango's letters also said you don't remember much from before Mom found you in the orchard." It was part of the truth, really. I remembered enough to know this wasn't my world, enough to know I was missing pieces of my life. "I heard, on my adventures, that the Three-Eye Tribe have a special ability, one I don't think you've heard about. It's said they can, with practice, hear the Voice of All Things."

"The what?"

Her smile quirked into something more fond as she turned to face me fully. "The Voice of All Things sings through the world. To hear it is to know all languages, read all writings, decipher all symbols. That is why I gave you these. A gift now and a gift later. I hoped you might enjoy the challenge."

I knew my eyes, all three of them, were wide as saucers. To understand every language in the world, to read ancient writings and uncover the truths I'd only seen pieces of in the history books. To rip away the veils thrown over the past, forbidden and shadowed by the World Government's edict-It was a dream. A beautiful, dangerous, exciting dream. I felt my lips curl into a smile as sharp and hungry as Cathedral's, saw her eyes warm with a vicious sort of pride.

"Hey, sweet apple pie?" Cath said, ruffling my hair. "I think I see my soul mirrored in yours."

She was right in more ways that one.


	3. Blink of an Eye

**Much thanks to Absalem131 and LoveSeasons for letting me know that Something Went Wrong** **posting this chapter the first time. Sorry about that! Hopefully this time it actually works.**

 **Anyway, a time skip will be happening during this chapter because I don't want to bore you all with the entirety of Apple's childhood. Enjoy!**

Chapter Three

Blink of an Eye

Cathedral and Chapel set sail again only days after they arrived. Both promised to write me, and write they did. Chapel sent poems, disjointed thoughts and snatches of observation alongside sketches of the islands they visited. Cathedral instead sent rubbings of hieroglyphs, copies of texts, and maps of ruins.

Church shook his head when he saw her letters to me. Marron laughed, but started training me harder than ever before.

"If you want to dig into secrets like that, you'll make enemies. It won't be enough just to know your way around a bar brawl. You've got to know your way around a battlefield now."

But neither of them stopped me, for which I was grateful. If I lost hold of this wild dream of mine, I probably wouldn't have survived.

I studied. I trained. I worked.

And through all of it I strove toward this mysterious ability Cathedral believed me capable of. I made little headway until the year I turned thirteen. That was the year Church pulled me aside and said he'd be taking over my training.

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve your mother never got the hang of," he said, and that was all the explanation I got before he threw me headlong into practice.

The trick was called Armament, and Church could cover both his arms in it. Me, I was lucky after years of practice to cover more than a finger. But that was later. At thirteen, I worked myself to the bone without any visible headway and got frustrated with the whole process.

I lay on the cool, springy grass of the orchard after training one day, feeling every muscle in my body scream out complaints. Exhaustion seemed to drag my body into the dirt beneath me. Anger set in quick, followed by self-reproach.

 _Eyes closed. Deep breath in, one-two-three-four._ The trick Mango had taught us all. _Hold one-two-three, exhale one-two-three-four. Inhale one-two-three-four. Feel the ground beneath you, how it holds your weight. The air around you, how it displaces to make room for your body. Draw the energy in with each inhale, and let go of your doubt with each exhale. One-two-three-four._

I sank into the pattern of it bit by bit, let myself float on the feeling. There was a science behind it, I knew from years of dealing with anxiety disorder. Breathe in the right pattern and you engage the paralimbic system, soothe the fight-or-flight response, calm the racing heart, etcetera. It worked, at least. My mind cleared, my body relaxed, and beneath everything I heard the faintest strains of music.

And then the voices.

— _hungry, hungry, where food where hungry—_

— _there prey mouse dive—_

— _hatchlings mine protect nest mine—_

A violin. The deep strum of a guitar. The clear chime of a bell. A rumbling voice like a rockslide, like ocean waves, forming words I couldn't make out.

Someone speaking as soft as the whisper of silk, familiar enough to rip at the blanks in my memory: _There you go, now, ink-stain of mine._

I sat up with a gasp, and the world went quiet again.

o

At fourteen, I could call up the Voice of All Things consciously, though it took time and effort.

At fifteen, I could cover the first knuckle of my pointer finger in Armament.

At sixteen, it only took a thought and a breath to start hearing the song of the world around me. I could read the ancient texts Cath sent like they were written in my native tongue.

That was the year Mom and Dad got nervous. Well, I think they'd been nervous for years, but tat was the year it all came to a head.

It happened like this: Bethel and I were out in the front yard. I was sitting criss-cross on a kitchen chair, one of Cath's gifted books in my lap, while Bethel wielded razor and scissors against my dark brown hair. At his direction, I'd already chopped his gold locks down to brush against his shoulders instead of his elbows.

He'd just finished shaving my sides down to a length I could stand (that is to say, a fine stubble) when Mom came down the road from town and saw us. At first, she smiled. Then she saw what I was reading and her expression fell like a thundercloud.

"Uh-ohhhh," Bethel sang in my ear, one long-fingered hand on my thin shoulder. I tilted my head up to look at him and he gave me a comforting smile. Nothing ever fazed him, but I was still carrying the weight of a lifetime spent as a disappointment. Mom's angry expression struck me in the chest.

She stormed up, snatched the book from my hand.

"What were you thinking?" she snapped, then modified her voice to something softer. "Apple, sweetie, you can't be reading things like this out in the open. If it'd been someone other than me coming down the walk, you'd be up shit creek."

"It's just a book, Mom," said Bethel. My own voice had frozen in my throat. I curled in on myself, shoulders at my ears, knees drawn up to my chest, eyes down.

"It's not just a book!" Again, her voice rose and then fell into a gentler tone. "Look, I know Cath has given you this impression that treason isn't a big deal, but this sort of thing is forbidden for a reason. If someone were to catch you with it, every Marine in the world would be after your head. You're my kid, Apple. You're my _kid_. What do I do if you get yourself executed, huh?"

Mom's voice hitched, and I raised my eyes from my knees to see tears rolling down her face.

In the years I'd been with her, I'd never seen Hamelin Marron cry.

I unraveled, then, fell against her and started crying too. "I'm sorry, Mom, I promise I'll be more careful, please stop crying, I'm sorry."

Dimly, I was aware of Bethel pulling the book from Mom's hand and retreating inside with it, leaving the two of us alone to blubber on the grass. I'd known it was dangerous, what Cath had gotten me into. But she approached everything in life with such blasé confidence, it was hard to take the danger seriously. If my big sister wasn't worried, why should I be? Sometimes, for all my knowledge, I could be pretty naive.

o

At eighteen, I met the man who would change my life.

His name was Trafalgar Law, and he was a pirate.


End file.
